


Time

by Orithain



Series: Fourth Pass [45]
Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 13:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9492140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orithain/pseuds/Orithain
Summary: Shandra remembers.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Shandra is another member of the Byzant Hold family, the sister of Alair, Er’ll and T’ril.  
> Originally posted November 2002.

**_~ Mid to late 4P11 ~_ **

Children crying. Mothers trying to soothe them as they themselves succumbed to the disease that claimed so many lives. Funeral pyres burning day and night. Hollow-eyed healers fighting a hopeless battle. Drawn faces, weariness, eyes old before their time. That was what Shandra remembered of the few horrible weeks of the plague.

Irony of ironies, it had turned out to be a common childhood ailment of the Ancients but one to which they’d lost their resistance through lack of exposure. Fortunately, they’d eventually been able to develop a vaccine, but the death toll had been horrific.

Chickenpox. It seemed such an innocuous name for something so terrible.

Standing on the fireheights as she remembered all the friends and loved ones who’d died two Turns before, Shandra looked around at others who’d chosen to do the same on this, the second anniversary of the first day no one else had died. She shivered and bid them farewell one final time, and she moved into her weyrmate’s arms, sheltering from the chill.

Perhaps it was time. Perhaps she shouldn’t take a ride _between_ with one of her brothers. Pressing a hand nervously to her still-flat belly, she said, “Perris, I have something to tell you...”


End file.
